


Abyssal Zone

by zombified_queer



Category: Bugsnax (Video Game)
Genre: Metaphors about the ocean, Other, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29814222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: Everyone on Snaktooth compares their love to the ocean. But no one writes an ode to a goblin shark.
Relationships: Floofty Fizzlebean/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Abyssal Zone

Reflex Rupture  
like a goblin shark  
struggling in a net  
you and i have cast, 

sunk with the heavy weight of rocks we found on the beach

Illogical Illuminating  
i think of anglerfish, how one becomes a part  
of another's body—parasitic  
and so very braindead  
i have to wonder if when you say  
“obedience is almost as good as competence”  
if this is what you think of me

Rupture Reflex  
when i pull this lever to make everything stop  
i do it selfishly  
like a hermit crab hoarding shells

* * *

you slept in a whalefall of wood, the ribs  
sticking out from the decay of flesh.

your hands are scarred from making wooden-whalebone tools. 

here, this bone can be a leg. 

and this bone here —a skull perhaps— can make a new home for two

* * *

lured in like a fish  
to a light and how stupid i was  
to not see the teeth

you lash out with words  
like a goblin shark  
or an eel  
always slippery and  
always ugly

but then we drift apart  
on a current of our own  
and then back again  
because that's  
how the current works

and it's bliss and seafoam,  
udulation  
that rocks the heart to sleep

and then the lure again,  
waved like a particularly delicious  
plankton or a chemical  
reaction in the dark

we drift apart & back again

* * *

creeping around the shipwreck  
like crab-things side-stepping  
the field lab and samples 

to some oceanic waltz  
always gasping, pincers outstretched  
for something  
new something  
to study something  
fascinating

holes in the wreck knitted closed with hand-made cloth, 

sutured with new wood to ensure a stable skeleton 

but always the crab-creeping, side-stepping, wave-waltzing

a whale fall by any other name

* * *

the river seems a paltry prize and living next to it means we hears whispering of deeper waters and abyssal plains, whale falls and salinity

fin in fin we retreat beneath the waves,  
down where the sun seems a fable  
where the life is bioluminescent  
the vents provide the only heat

* * *

like an oarfish, staring  
straight up, blinded  
by the sun and the surface  
of the sea

sendentary

p  
o  
n  
d  
e  
r  
i  
n  
g

and then the mouth splits, not 

a mouth 

like the land thinks of mouths

a gulp

the fish is gone

and you—my oarfish—continue  
to stare and wait and ponder, 

fins a bright red warning 

in the waves of ecology and oceanography 

and science i can never understand

a wave breaks on the shore

you've sunk into your depths again

* * *

water rusts—a simple matter of oxidation,  
a reaction with metal deep  
under the gentle roll of waves

water cools—a matter of temperatures  
and equilibrium

water takes—a matter of carelessness  
and accidents,  
explained by being likened to love

the kelp forest hides from prying  
eyes, intentions of romance and affection,  
fondness darting between thick aquatic vines  
laughter swallowed up in a darting school of sameness


End file.
